


Asuka in the Bardo

by HologramTheatre



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:54:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29637726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HologramTheatre/pseuds/HologramTheatre
Summary: bardo (noun): the intermediate or astral state of the soul after death and before rebirth (Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary)Asuka Langley Soryu was utterly defeated and humiliated during the final hours of her too short life. Then, in those chaotic moments of raw intimacy before Third Impact, she flatly rejected Shinji once and for all and gave in to his murderous rage. In the end, though, she chose to return from Instrumentality and laid by Shinji's side. What did she leave behind there and what did she take with her? How did she get from "No" to a caress? This story is one interpretation.
Relationships: Ikari Shinji/Souryuu Asuka Langley
Comments: 22
Kudos: 27





	1. Asuka Discarnate

Crumpled and abandoned, the former Evangelion pilot Asuka Langley Soryu lay wheezing and half-conscious on the floor of Misato’s thoroughly trashed kitchen. She lay where she had been left for dead after her erstwhile companion, Shinji Ikari, discarded her in favor of his more apocalyptic ambitions. She didn’t know how long she had lain there. It felt like five seconds ago, but it could have easily been five centuries, or longer.

She felt something wet on her toes and recoiled. Making a sudden movement shook her into a higher level of awareness so she rolled herself into a half erect position. Her feet had been in a puddle of coffee, now cold. She remembered everything.

Everything meant in a holistic sense. She was aware of billions of undulating human minds swirling into one multiplicity. The feeling of insignificance was not altogether new to her. Asuka hated herself, after all. This novel and vivid awareness of her not-even-a-billionth’s share of the world was a bit much, though.

She felt her own mind slipping through a prism that refracted what made up _Asuka_ into every color of the human experience. To her it felt more like getting passed through a mental cheese grater. Scrape scrape scraping away at her wholeness into digestible chunks.

She felt a billion other billionths of this new being pressing in upon her, too. Their rapturous glee at seeing her horrified her, their orgasmic bliss with their new-found intimacy disgusted her. They pulled her apart along every hatred, fear, anxiety, loneliness, and even love. They held each aspect of herself up to their faces like a mirror and called out: **You are me, too. We feel the same. We are more alike than we ever knew.**

_You don’t understand me!_ Nobody _can understand me! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!_

Asuka pushed herself up against a cabinet and coughed hard. She tasted coppery LCL which she spat out onto the floor, then wiped her mouth on her yellow shirt.

_Stupid Shinji, where’d you go? Come finish the job. You stupid coward! You never finish anything off except yourself!_

Asuka could feel his absence even in all those billions.

She surveyed the upended ruin of their home. She felt responsible for it. Responsibility swelled into a perverse sense of satisfaction. This had been her work. It had taken her a lot of time and tears to get here.

_It’s not me, it’s you._

She had finally proven herself right. After all those false starts, false hopes, and one terrible kiss, Asuka had proven categorically to herself for all time that the Shinji she needed, or had thought she needed, did not exist. Could not exist. She had given him every opportunity. _But he wouldn’t even hold me._

_Because I was his jerk-off fantasy._ That hit her hard, somehow even harder than it was bearing witness to his memory of the act. It wasn’t just that he had done that. _I can’t believe I believed all this time I could be anything more. That’s what was behind all of his stupid smilies and his stupid sorrys and rushing out in front of her to fight all the angels._

_“You’re the only one for me!” He had lied to cover up his crime._

He instantly proved her right. He called out for somebody, anybody else when she refused him.

_“Help me, save me!” He begged me when no one else came, as if that would flatter me into forgetting._

Nobody had.

_Conceited little boy. Jerking off to the whole world. They never asked you to do anything. And then what did you go and do, huh?_

“Why aren’t you here?!” she screamed and kicked a toppled chair. It skittered across the floor into the upturned table. She hugged her knees to her chest and cried. The needy billionths came creeping back. She pulled herself together, wiping her tears from her eyes and onto her blue shorts.

With much less difficulty than she expected, she hauled herself onto her feet. She had steeled herself for more of a struggle so when it hadn’t come she had to grapple with finding a purpose faster than expected. Where would she go? Where was she _really_ ? It was hard, but the cloying verisimilitude of the apartment fell apart under any close examination. She wasn’t really _there_.

_I guess when you’re nowhere, you can go anywhere_ , she thought, marching out the apartment door.

Or so she thought. She emerged into one of the anonymous corridors that criss-crossed the GeoFront. Behind her was more corridor.

_I’m dead and I still can’t escape this place. Great._

She perceived a _drip-drip-dripping_ sensation and a red warmth that ran down her right arm. But there didn’t seem to be anything the matter when she looked. Nothing was amiss other than that the right sleeve of her plug suit was torn apart and hung in ribbons from her shoulder and wrist.

_My plug suit? When did I change clothes?_

Still not really knowing what to do, she kept walking while she collected herself.

“I _am_ dead, right?” she said aloud.

Nobody replied.

She replayed the last few seconds of her life in her mind, at least the way she understood it. The monsters descended on her. Tearing. Then they leapt into the air to prepare the killing blow. _I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you._ A new presence in the entry plug crawled towards her. The presence was intensely familiar even through the murk of LCL fouled by Asuka’s own blood. And at his touch, her miserable physical existence ended with a _pop_.

_His touch?_

_If that was_ him _then what happened afterwards? Did he regret it? Did he think I wouldn’t find out?_

She and Stupid Shinji had ricoched in and out of each other’s minds saying nothing particularly new but learning a great deal about one another. She had laid down the gauntlet. He had balked, like always. Strangling her, though, _that_ was a new tactic.

_You won’t even hold me_.

This was Instrumentality, a word she learned from Misato’s recollections moments before or maybe ages ago. That was early on, before the titanic cacophony of several billion more souls poured into her, now their, collective consciousness. Those ones had not been remotely aware of what was going on. There was a great amount of psychic shouting.

The sterile white hallway stretched on into infinity. There was no geometry to this place which left Asuka feeling increasingly disoriented and nauseous. She braced herself by a window that opened out to the great subterranean habitat. The silvery arc of the GeoFront’s false sky shone brightly. There was no natural blue there.

_No bombs fell here. It’s not real._

She looked down at the idyllic forest. The trees should have been knocked over and burnt down to charcoal. In the distance, she could distinctly make out a small garden. She squinted at it, hoping desperately to see a figure there. Nobody was tending it.

Even though she was alone in a phony hallway, Asuka felt self-conscious. Her plug suit was starting to bunch and peel back in awkward places. It was meant to form a hermetic seal around her body, but the damage made that impossible. It would start to slough off if she didn’t change out of it soon.

_Just what I need, four billion perverts staring at me naked._

She turned around and, miraculously, she was already across the hall from the Nerv locker room for female pilots.

_Yeah, right. Whatever. Since I’m here..._

She stomped inside. The locker room was also empty, though that wasn’t all that unusual. There had only ever been two girl pilots, and one of them spent much of her time in a hospital ward. Asuka shuddered at the thought. She noticed that her school uniform was neatly folded and piled on a bench like she had changed out of it herself earlier and traipsed off to battle.

_Of course it is._

Asuka disengaged her suit’s form-fitting mechanism, but the seals were so wrecked that she ended up having to tear herself free chunk by chunk. Peeling off each piece reminded her of the awful, awkward fitting sessions back at Nerv Third Branch in Germany but in reverse.

_Sorry to ruin all your fine work, Herren. You really outdid yourselves on fitting this thing. Anybody who worked in your department should’ve had their computers seized and scanned for contraband..._

Bits of her pride came off with every piece so she was slowly stripped of that, too. Her right sleeve was torn because it had been shredded by one of those twisted spears. She remembered how pathetic it felt to put her hand up against the final assault by those monsters. She had won, then lost, her greatest battle. The last battle ever fought on Earth.

In her fourteen years of life, she could count two days when she wanted most to live. The first day ended with her mother’s death, the second day ended with her own. Sort of.

The last scraps of her suit to come off were the gauntlets with their shackle-like cuffs. She let them drop to the floor with a clunk. Her red headsets came out of her hair easily. She held one in each palm, hefting them suspiciously. They were somewhat heavy when she wore them as improvised hair clips, but she had long decided that she could bear that minor discomfort as an outward symbol of her own greatness and authority. If kings and queens could haul around solid gold crowns on their pointy heads to let the peons know who’s boss, she could do it, too. And, unlike a crown, she had earned them.

At least so she had thought until quite recently. Finding her mother inside the Eva made her wonder. _Was this my inheritance? Was I born into this life? Was it ever a choice?_

Now the headsets felt like two leaden lumps.

Asuka eyed her neatly piled school clothing. Ordinarily she’d place the headsets besides her clothing so she’d be ready to accessorize again after showering. Her eyes drifted to the rags piled on the floor. She closed her fists and at last hurled them into the darkness of the far locker room. The headsets clanked against some lockers and into oblivion. Then she dug her heel into the ruined red heap on the floor and twisted.

As she showered, she couldn’t help but trace her fingers along the tell-tale signs of her mental breakdown. The tone of a youthful athlete had given way to protruding rib and hip bones. Her muscles felt tight but without strength, like a rope pulled too taut. Everywhere she pressed inward felt hollow. She wanted to punch the tile, but she doubted she even had the strength to hurt herself anymore.

Asuka put on the school uniform if only to escape herself. As she fastened the red ribbon around her neck, she could tell she was no longer alone.

“Ayanami?”

Rei Ayanami appeared before her dressed in her school uniform. Asuka looked down at her own blue and white outfit. Asuka hated anything that made her seem similar to that blue haired doll. She curled her toes into the remains of her shredded plug suit underfoot. _Should have brought a change from the fake apartment._

Rei’s creepy red eyes felt more attentive than they ever had in life. Asuka folded her arms across her chest and frowned. She resolved to remain angry, not afraid.

“Well? Where’s your _son_ gone off to? Some _mother_ you are, losing track of your own child!”

“I am not his mother,” Rei replied in her monotone. Her two red eyes stared back at the redhead. 

“So where is he? I wasn’t through with him,” Asuka said with less venom. The faster she found Shinji, the faster it would all finally end. He had surprisingly strong hands for such a shrimp. Maybe it was the cello?

“He is gone.”

“Gone?! Where can anybody go from here?”

“He has gone back into the world. He wanted to experience the boundaries between people again. He hopes to find happiness that way.”

Asuka forced out a spiteful laugh. “So he ran away?” The idea of going back sent her reeling. Whatever survived out there to wait for her couldn’t be good. Then again, at least it’d be over.

Rei didn’t respond.

“Of course he ran away. He does all of this, whatever this is, and he runs away. He finally, _finally_ almost gets what he wants,” Asuka went on, unfolding her arms so she could caress her throat meaningfully, “and he still runs away! The invincible coward Shinji!” She kicked in a locker door.

“You gave him permission.”

“What does _that_ mean, Wondergirl?”

Rei didn’t explain. _Of course I know what she means. She knows I know. I know she knows I know. This_ fucking _place._

Asuka shrugged as casually as she could affect. “Fine, he’s gone. Good! Can I go now?”

“Yes, but if you go you will die.”

Asuka tasted LCL in her mouth again, or maybe it was just blood.

“Is that a threat?” she tried to spit back with malice, but her heart wasn’t in it.

“No, it is reality. Your injuries have left you weak and vulnerable. You would not be able to provide yourself with even basic needs.”

Asuka looked down at her body, feeling certain places where she remembered the pain. Her flesh seemed whole to her in this place, but she knew better. She remembered the spear, their tearing mouths. Her clothing felt more like a shroud. She shoved all that aside for now. There would be plenty of time for those new nightmares to join the old ones.

She lunged at Rei, grasping her by the shoulders. “He leaves me to die but I don’t die! He tries to kill me but doesn’t finish the job! You do it, then! What?! No!” Her hands passed through Rei’s clothing as though it was smoke. They sank into the flesh of Rei’s shoulders. Their skin rippled and smoothed out into a single surface.

She saw an orange tank full of blissful Rei doubles. Shattered glasses. A severed hand. The Earth from orbit but her feet still touched the ground. Her and Shinji passing into and through each other. The intimacy of it all was unlike anything Asuka had ever known.

Asuka ripped her hands free. They came out surprisingly easily. She took a step away from Rei, but tripped over her tattered plug suit and fell. _What is she?!_

Rei herself remained unperturbed.

“You cannot die here. The boundaries between our hearts were broken by Third Impact. The human organism was composed of many complementary cells which formed a single mind. This new organism is made up of many minds which complement each other to form a single existence, a perfect understanding. Your human emotions are the cells. As our bodies did not forget to regrow the cells we shed in life to maintain its wholeness, so this new organism will not forget that which makes it whole.”

She paused to consider her next words.

“However, I think that you will only know pain here.”

Asuka picked herself up and sat on the locker room bench. Though shaken, she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at Rei’s new-found sense of dramatic timing. Maintaining her own sense of casual disregard was helping her keep it together.

“My choices are pain or death!? What kind of heaven is this?”

“This is neither heaven nor hell. It is everlasting life. A new form of organism initiated by the Human Instrumentality Project. We-”

“Who cares about any of that?! What _are_ you?!”

Rei looked away from Asuka for a moment. 

“I do not know. But.”

Asuka was perturbed by the intense look of concentration that crossed Rei’s face. She has never seen Wondergirl so expressive, not that Asuka had ever given her much of a chance to express herself around her.

“But I know that here I am at home. Here I can see humanity for the first time. I did not know how to interpret your words or your faces before. A word could have two opposite meanings, or ten meanings each similar but exclusive of one another. A face could have a thousand from moment to moment.”

Rei looked back at Asuka inquisitively. Asuka felt herself being probed. She remembered an elevator ride.

“You opened your heart to the Eva,” Rei said finally.

Asuka swallowed a mouthful of clotted metallic vileness. She shook her head violently.

“Stay out of my mind! Freak!”

“There can be no secrets here,” Rei said. She sat beside Asuka, who flinched but didn’t move to get up. “I would like to understand something. Please?” She reached out her hand.

Asuka twitched her arm to slap Rei’s away, but something about the plaintive request stayed her. She relaxed to indicate something like acquiescence. She was getting tired and giving in was getting easier.

Rei placed the palm of her hand on Asuka’s arm, muddling the border between them once again. She closed her eyes. Her lips stayed frozen in their typical near-frown. Asuka sensed memories of her early childhood. Of her mother and dolls and pride and loss. It wasn’t like when the Angel had ripped through her mind, though. Instead it was like hearing a movie playing in the theater next to her own.

In Asuka’s theater, she saw scenes from the triple lives of Rei Ayanami. In the beginning there were so many cold hands. Four hands had belonged to an Akagi. The hands got warmer. Four hands had belonged to an Ikari. Gendo’s had made her feel appreciated, but Shinji’s had made her feel chosen. The overall effect was like emerging from a bout of hypothermia.

Asuka saw that nobody new to Rei’s life had chosen to be there in the sense that they were there for her company. Rei’s life was their science fair project. They had degrees in engineering, medicine, or metaphysical biology. They had signed all the Nerv confidentiality agreements and releases. Up until Shinji, Rei had never considered whether or not she herself could choose who to let in. She had nothing else but piloting the Eva.

Then Shinji had torn open her plug and begged her not to say goodbye or say that she had nothing else. Rei realized she had been wrong. She could choose to have something beyond her given purpose. She chose to smile.

Asuka gritted her teeth at the scene laid out before her. _All that for her, but he’d never do it for me._ The movie was spoiled. She already knew the ending.

They were back on the cool locker room bench. Rei’s lips parted and she inhaled a short, sharp breath. She withdrew her hand. 

“Thank you, I understand now,” she said. Her eyes filled with so much sorrow.

Asuka rolled her eyes to break contact. “So you think you understand me, too?”

“We are alike and complementary. That was why we piloted Eva. We had nothing else. That is why we opened our hearts. We had no one else.”

Asuka didn’t enjoy hearing the comparison drawn so starkly, but Rei had already moved on.

“What makes us different is in how we experience loss. I have not felt the loss of somebody I needed. The people I have lost I chose to lose, or no longer needed. Those choices were necessary.”

“Do you want a medal for bravery, Ayanami?”

Rei thought.

“I do not want for anything here, nor need. What do you want?”

_Nothing!_

“Who do you need?”

_Nobody!_

“Then why do you want to leave here, the only place where he will never be?”

Asuka stood up. _Enough of this bullshit therapy session!_

“This is stupid. I’m tired of it. I have nothing left to say. You already know what I’m going to say before I say it! What else would I say to you, anyway? ‘Good job blowing yourself up’? Well you didn’t save him or the world so what good was it? We both lost, is that what you want to hear? That I’m no better than you? That we’re the same kind of failure? I’m done! I’m leaving!”

Rei got to her feet.

“You do have that choice, Soryu.”

Asuka leaned back against a wall that hadn’t been there a moment before. They were in an elevator. The floor indicator _tick-tick-ticked_ down. Rei faced the elevator door. Asuka stomped her foot and pounded the elevator walls with her fists. She was furious.

“Here?! Here we go again! ‘Open your heart’? I did. It’s still there in my plug buried in that ruin above us, or below us, or wherever the fuck we are! Scoop it out and look at it!”

Asuka was sobbing now.

_If I can’t have all of you, I don’t want any of you!_

“I _told_ him, Ayanami, you were there! I told him exactly what it would take! What did he do? He ends the world to get away from me! I hate him! I HATE HIM!”

“If you go back, you will die,” reiterated Rei.

“Maybe I want to! I didn’t fight it! I let him! I let him!”

“You didn’t want to,” Rei said, peering over her shoulder for a moment. Asuka thought her red eyes conveyed just the slightest hint of smug self-satisfaction, or maybe her rage had now blinded her. “Not until you died.”

_Oh now she’s sarcastic?!_ She thought but Asuka for the first time felt fear in this place.

The indicator ticked lower and lower.

“When my previous self chose to die it was not so hard of a decision to make,” Rei continued, not bothering to turn around this time. “My choice then was clear: die and lose myself or lose those whom I loved. I have come to believe that is what to love is: Sacrifice of oneself for the sake of others. When my previous self died, her love died, though.”

_Please just shut up._

“Do you think it is possible to sacrifice less of oneself than the whole of oneself?”

_Stop._

“Do you think it is possible to feel love without it ending in death?”

_JUST STOP._

Rei turned and looked Asuka in the eye. “Do you think need precedes love?”

Asuka shoved past Rei and punched the Emergency Stop button. The doors swung open and she stepped into the sun, sea air, and the scent of a man’s cologne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw Evangelion for the first time a few months ago and it really stuck with me, especially the Instrumentality scenes in both the TV show and EoE. This is my attempt to work out my own interpretation of why Asuka showed up on the beach and what went through her head when she reached out to caress Shinji's cheek. I hope I get there!


	2. Sea Sick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated some tags including the rating to Mature due to this chapter’s subject matter.

The sea breeze was pleasantly cool, but Asuka could barely feel it through all the layers of clothing she had wrapped herself in before coming on deck. She wore a long and somewhat loose fitting dress. Over that she had a cardigan and over that a bomber jacket borrowed from some naval aviator’s locker. She hadn’t packed any pants longer than shorts. They had told her the climate of Japan was particularly warm since the Second Impact. They had also told her that one of the other pilots was a boy. Instead she wore thick, dark stockings usually reserved for a chilly day. She could buy pants with her allowance there. A pair of aviator sunglasses, also borrowed, shielded two weary blue eyes from the light of day.

In the distance she could see a boxy UN VTOL craft approaching from the direction of the mainland. She knew it was carrying stupid Misato and stupid Shinji and his stupid friends. Soon they would meet for the second first time, then that stupid fish Angel would strike. Her mind absently went through a few combat scenarios based on her prior experience. She had been trained since she was four so it was an easy habit to slip back into.

Her eyes, though, drifted to the sea some meters below her perch on the deck of the aircraft carrier. The grey hull of the antique battlewagon sliced through the water effortlessly much like she could herself as she was a trained diver. She was a strong swimmer. She could weigh herself down with some flotsam, or was it jetsam? Would the difference matter to whatever maritime authority adjudicated her death?

_Will I implode?_ Asuka clutched her stomach and squeezed, nearly caving herself in all on her own. The vast and empty hollowness within her had formed after the first few nights. A void she had wished to fill yawned wider than it had ever been. A vacuum that pulled her flesh taut from within. The weight of the air itself felt oppressive on her shoulders.

Not as oppressive as the hands that now rested on them, though. His hands. She could not say the name or even think it any longer. Not since. She could sense that he had noted that change, but it seemed to frighten him more than hurt him. She found herself wishing the latter was the case. At least it would mean he could be moved by anything she felt for him. _You’re disgusting, Asuka. You’re pathetic._

“Asuka,” he said breezily, though with an edge that had never been there before. It made him sound like a cartoon villain.

“We have to keep what you did that night and everything afterwards our secret. I don’t think that had to be said. Nevertheless, I’m saying it. There will also be a lot more, ah, supervision at the GeoFront. We’ll have to see less of each other, but I’ll see what arrangements can be made. It will be hard on me, too, you know.”

It had been a long voyage from Germany to Japan. Asuka measured it in nights. She joined this reality the first night out of Wilhelmshaven and put into action the very same plot that she had schemed the last time around. It was not hard to contrive a similar situation on that first night since she had already built up the courage to make her move. Wherever the two went aboard, they soon found themselves alone. The naval personnel, wary of anybody involved with those robotic monsters that slept in blood, gave the two of them a wide berth. They still did, but not because of the Evangelion.

And this time she knew she would pull off her plan because, like a god, she had created this world to live in forever. Before Japan, before that wretched apartment, before angels, the bathtub, and the hospital. Before that stupid boy. She arrived at the perfect moment before her life had been completely derailed. The moment when she knew for certain who she wanted by her side.

“And,” he continued, “they will notice how you’ve changed during your first physical at NERV. You won’t be able to hide it so don’t try. I think your last physical was a few weeks before we left. You didn’t have any since Unit-02 was packed for shipment, right?”

It was a clear and starlit night on the North Sea. Asuka has scouted the perfect place to strike on the battleship’s fantail. The enormous bulk of the ship’s aft turret obscured a large space from any prying eyes up in the superstructure. She practically dragged him there.

The last time she had ruined the mood by being too eager, too childish. This time would be different. She still complained about not getting to see him as much when they arrived, but she didn’t mention Misato. When he brought up the stupid Third Child, she quietly loosened the buttons of her dress rather than pouncing. _I’m not some desperate slut._

“Yeah, it must have been a few weeks. Just enough time. Who was that guy in your physics seminar? The one you said would stare at you? Philipp?”

Asuka pursed her lips. Her college classmates had mostly ignored her, the temperamental tween prodigy, after she had humiliated herself enough times trying to approach them as her peers. They certainly appreciated her advanced knowledge and technical expertise as a lab partner. Some of the women students had even invited her to their study sessions, though there she felt more like a mascot or their doll than anything resembling a colleague. Outside of academics, an impermeable curtain was drawn between them. She learned to sense the mood shift, when to slink away when the discussion turned towards topics for adults.

The only attention she garnered was the sort that followed her from the classroom door to her desk and back again after class was dismissed. The silent attentiveness of a pair of eyes. In every class there was at least one pair, often more.

Asuka had developed her first and only defensive tactic purely by accident. She was uncharacteristically late to class one day after a prototype sync test ran long. When she entered the full classroom, she unwittingly made eye contact with one of her admirers. His eyes widened at the realization of being noticed. Like a bent reed suddenly released, he shot up in his seat and turned his attention towards the professor. There it remained until class was dismissed when Asuka found herself being tracked as she left.

_Yeah, I see you, pervert_ , she remembered thinking, the whole of her soul clouding over. She had learned the principles of jiu jitsu as part of her combat training and put them to use on this battlefield. It didn’t take much, just leaning forward would do. Then she’d wait one of them out. It never took long. Then, without moving, she’d swivel her eyes over and stare back. It always took a moment for them to notice, but she always caught her prey in the middle of their attack.

In those moments she knew she had made the closest connections she ever would with her classmates. She expanded her universe of self-hatred to encompass her body, too.

A sudden gust of sea air caught Asuka in the face.

“I think it was Philipp,” he said with more certainty.

She had earnestly forgotten his name at this point. _Might have been Phillipp, who cares? It’s not like he was the only one._ She tried to shrug but the weight of his hands dampened the motion.

“Well, when they notice, blow it off as nothing. You grew up so fast, we all know that. They shouldn’t be surprised given how attractive you are. But if they press you, just blame that creep. You knew you were leaving, had a silly fling, didn’t mean anything. No need to make a fuss or follow up.”

And on that starry first night at sea when before he had dismissed her as a child, Asuka didn’t whine or beg or fling herself on top of him. She tugged the front of her dress open just enough. She whispered in a husky voice like something out of a movie.

“You’re still a child,” he had said then, wearily.

“Oh? Look at me, Kaji.”

This time he did more than look, he saw her as the adult she knew she had become. She rolled into him and felt his usual resistance fail. All that reluctance and propriety fell away. She proved it was all a pretence just like she had fantasized. He stopped pushing and instead pulled her into a place she could never leave.

After the first night, she wondered where the butterflies in her stomach had gone. _Maybe they are in a chrysalis? Like the one I finally escaped? No, stupid, you got that backwards._ After the second night, she found it increasingly hard to meet his gaze. After the third, she could no longer utter his name. A tepid smile would have to do from then on. The butterflies were dead. That lovey-dovey stuff was for children, but what they were doing wasn’t for adults. It was just wrong. There were too many nights between Germany and Japan.

The VTOL now hovered over the aircraft carrier’s flight deck. Deck crew hurried around preparing the landing zone. Asuka blinked something out of her eyes and looked at the passenger compartment windows. She could see Misato and that otaku with his camera peering out, but not Shinji.

_Too late, again, stupid._

He gave her shoulders a final, curt squeeze before letting her go.

“Why don’t you go meet Misato and the Third Child now? You remember her, right? She and I, well, it was a long time ago and people grow apart.”

Asuka vomited over the rail.

Her hands gripped something steel but it was no longer a railing aboard a ship. It was the rim of a spartan hospital toilet. She reached up to pull her long red hair back before it fell into the bowl but somebody had already done so. She recoiled instinctively.

“It’s just me, Asuka.”

Dr. Ritsuko Akagi squatted beside her, stroking her back and keeping her hair up. Asuka retched one more time. The memory of her hellish voyage faded into less than a recollection, like a sad story told about somebody else. It wasn’t real, after all. She had gone back to get an answer and she hadn’t liked it and wished she had never asked the question in the first place.

Ritsuko led the exhausted girl out into an examination room. Out of habit, Asuka hopped onto the paper-covered table. She noticed she was in her plug suit again, though this one was whole and functional.

_It’s like I only did some sync tests. It’s not the real thing. The innocence of it all..._

In a sense, her innocence had been restored. The experience was like a song but, having forgotten the lyrics, Asuka could only hum along to the music, the essence of the emotions within. Emotions which belonged to her, others, who could tell here?

Dr. Akagi sat at a desk and lit a cigarette. She eyed Asuka with a detached fascination. Like an experiment that produced its first dataset.

“I never really liked you if we’re being honest, doctor,” said Asuka, smiling without joy.

“I know,” Ritsuko said, gesturing vaguely around as though to indicate the un-reality of their surroundings. “Call me Ritsuko. We’re past all those formalities. Would it make you happy if I told you I got shot?”

Asuka recalled a gunshot, then floating in a lake of LCL. _What a buffoon. What a sentimental idiot!_

“I know,” said Asuka, grinning now. Ritsuko smiled a tight little smile.

“So, how do you feel?”

Asuka looked side to side. Nothing was real but this felt like a prank.

_How do I feel?!_

“What kind of stupid question is that? That was awful! That was... that was...”

“That wasn’t Kaji,” said Misato from what had hitherto been an empty corner of the examination room. “Not really. He’s dead. Truly dead. He didn’t have the good sense to wait until later to die like we did.”

Now Asuka recalled a cold corridor of the GeoFront. There was a warmth on her lips and from all the bullet holes where blood leaked out.

_Oh right, I also died_.

“His timing was never great. Then again, neither was mine. That person you met in that life-that-could-have-been wasn’t him. He never would have done those things.”

Asuka gulped and balled her fists.

_Because I never win? Because what I want never comes to me? Because I always come in second?_

“Because he was still all hung up on you?”

“No! No, of course not. You think that’s what was wrong? He wouldn’t have because you’re a child! You were in his care. He was responsible for you.”

“Unlike us,” Ritsuko said, idly twirling around in her utilitarian office chair. “He took that burden seriously. He tried to get to the truth so he could change things. We knew the truth and did nothing about it.”

Misato eyed her. “You did a lot more than nothing, don’t you think?”

“So how do you feel, Asuka?” insisted Ritsuko, “Knowing that you yourself would imagine that world?”

_I wish I wanted it. I wish you’d shut up._

The hospital room after the end of the world was silent for a time. Asuka studied the floor. She gripped the side of the examination table, tearing the paper cover.

Ritsuko stood up and broke the silence.

“I’ll leave. I’m sure you’d rather talk to her than this old spinster cat lady. Remember to turn the lights off when you’re done.”

Ritsuko crossed to the door and left. The door clicked shut.

Asuka had to blink her eyes. The stark white glow of the medical wing was gone. It had been replaced by a dim orange sunlight coming from an open window. A late afternoon hue.

When she could see again, she beheld a real pig sty of an off campus apartment. The only order to it that she could discern was that one corner appeared to be for beer cans, but clothing followed a roughly linear path from the doorway to the bed. A dusty electric fan hummed by the window. Its even, droning tone gave the room a contemplative atmosphere.

The fan blew onto the bed. On the bed sat Misato. This time she was alone.

Asuka knew this place from earlier. The Misato on the bed looked younger than her years, but she couldn’t tell if it was due to the low lighting or the startlingly uninhibited way in which she was dressed. She was pulling on a man’s shirt and buttoning it up with a practiced motion. Under that Asuka thought she spotted a pair of sleeping shorts, or maybe something less.

Asuka looked back over her shoulder, but she didn’t see the other partner from this scene of passionate romance. Nor did she see her fellow voyeur from before, but she knew he wouldn’t be there now.

“Oh Kaji’s long gone,” said Misato quietly, reading Asuka’s thoughts. “This was all over ages ago.”

Asuka looked down at her feet. She had gotten an answer, she had gotten much more than that. But she didn’t gain an understanding. And the only person who might be able to say why was gone. _Tot_. She clenched and unclenched her fists. The room was still warm with an afterglow.

“Why wasn’t it like this for me?” she asked at last.

“Come here,” Misato beckoned, patting the bed to her left. 

When Asuka sat down beside her, Misato flopped down onto her back and folded her hands behind her head. She kicked her legs out and let them fall down so her feet touched the floor. She hadn’t buttoned the shirt all the way down. It rode up a bit so that her midriff just showed.

Asuka turned away, blushing slightly at some fresh jealousy. One of the many things Asuka admired about Misato, but would never admit to, was how Misato had a certain way of hinting at more with less effort. It only took a movement of her red uniform jacket to change from all business to all curves. Or a whiff of lavender to turn formality into allure. Even when she loafed around the apartment showing all that skin, she never gave the whole game away. There was always more she kept hidden. To be sought.

_Maybe she had to? Because of that scar?_

Unbidden, Asuka remembered tearing her dress open at sea. The way it had really happened. She remembered when she was poolside pressing her chest in to see if she could get Shinji’s eyes to pop out. She, on the other hand, was as seductive as a bludgeon.

_Maybe I’m just a stupid kid._

Asuka made to collapse backwards herself, but first Misato said, “Wait! Before you do, switch the fan to oscillating. It’ll cool you down.”

Misato was right. When Asuka did lay back, she enjoyed the pleasant coolness as it wafted over her from head to toe. They lay there silently for a while before Misato stirred.

“I already told you why. It’s because you’re a child.”

Asuka shook her head. “That’s not good enough. I know I’m not, you know, ‘all grown up’ but that didn’t stop guys from looking at me. I know they did, I saw them looking. I don’t mean the gross little boys at school. The guys at college. Others.”

Misato chuckled. “That’s when you found out that you were a _woman_. That’s different, Asuka.”

Asuka scrunched her nose. “I thought it was the cramps.”

“No, that’s not it at all! Think about it. When was the first time you looked in the mirror and saw a woman looking back at you?”

_It was the day I caught that pervert staring. After class I went about my business for the day, then I went home. I took a shower. Everything felt the same. I dried myself off and wrapped a big towel around me like always. Nothing had changed from the day before to that day. I started toweling off my hair. I stood in front of the mirror. When I lifted my arms up to wrap the towel around my head, I saw. I saw what he saw. My chest lifted up, too. Just a little, but just enough to make all the difference._

“Being a woman means being seen,” Misato continued. “What did I tell Shinji all the time? ‘Be a man!’ Some good that did, huh? But nobody ever told you ‘Asuka, be a woman!’ now did they? Wasn’t for you to choose. You weren’t, now you are. They always catch us in the end.”

The fan blew a chill up Asuka’s body.

“Being a child is different. Being a child means you’re under everybody else’s control. Nothing’s yours to give or take. Then you become young. That’s when you go out of control. After that’s adulthood. That’s the time when mistakes become regrets because there’s no going back to fix them. You just have to make the best of it from then on and make do with what you have left.”

Misato sniffed. “I learned I was an adult by voicemail. What do you think of that?”

Asuka wasn’t sure what she thought about Misato, but she understood what she meant.

_Why didn’t he call me?_

“Is it okay if I’m a little mad at him? For dying?”

“Yeah, that’s okay with me. Let’s both be mad, alright?” Misato said, hooking an arm behind Asuka’s neck. To her own surprise, Asuka tolerated the gesture. Misato held her right arm straight up, flipping off the ceiling.

“Fuck you, Kaji Ryoji!”

Asuka laughed, which shook a few tears loose but she didn’t mind. She eyed Misato, who was smiling placidly at the ceiling. _This isn’t terrible._ Asuka inhaled.

“I must have really embarrassed him. Like, all the time.”

Misato shifted her arm slightly so she could brush Asuka’s own arm with her fingers.

“We didn’t talk about stuff like that. Really! I don’t think he wanted my advice. You probably reminded him too much of me and see how I turned out?”

“Hey!” Asuka said, still a little protective of her pride. “I wish...”

“No! That’s why your dream or whatever went the way it did. You loved Kaji, you were infatuated with him. He took responsibility for your feelings the best way he knew how. He knew more stuff about you than you do yourself. Sync logs, psych profiles, your grades, everything. The stuff they had on your kids read like an operating manual. That’s why he humored you so much. He knew how fragile you were under all that pride.”

_Humored, huh?_

“And it would have destroyed you, Asuka, to be used like that. You were a born hero out to save the world. An infatuation shrinks the world down to one man to live and die by. Children ask for silly things all the time. Things they don’t understand. The moment, the very second, he touched you would be to take advantage of you.”

Asuka let her head roll to the left away from Misato. “I didn’t want to be his burden.”

“I didn’t call you that.”

“Didn’t you, though?” she spat, but the anger dissolved instantly. “I’m sorry. If what you say is true, that means he knew all about how messed up I am. I was so stupid around him because I felt him slipping away. He should have abandoned me. I didn’t deserve him. I would have given him anything to make him stay. I would have done all of that just to make it easier to be around me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but anyone would do for what you threw his way. What of your soul could you have shown him? Did he ever let you inside?”

_If I can’t have all of you, I don’t want any of you._

“Even when we were together he used to say he felt like I was staring at him from across a river. We’d boat across but wouldn’t bridge it.”

_Oh._

“Yeah,” whispered Misato.

The sun had since set and the fan blew an evening chill over the two. Misato pulled Asuka closer into a half hug. _I hate how nice this feels._ Asuka rolled just enough into Misato’s side so she could rest her cheek on her bicep. Misato stared up at the ceiling, or at nothing, or at something else entirely. _Maybe we see what we need to see here?_

Misato’s lips curled just slightly upwards. “Do you think it could have been like this? Should we have tried harder?”

“I don’t know,” Asuka said, but she had some strong doubts. _I never would have forgiven you for Kaji. I would have blamed you when I finally pushed you-know-who away._

“Probably not, huh? I would have kept stealing all your boyfriends,” Misato said. She flicked Asuka’s arm. “That’s a joke so laugh!”

Asuka tried something new. She wrapped her free arm around Misato’s midsection. An ambiguity of personhood crept into her fingers and cheek like before with Ayanami, but this time it wasn’t so penetrating. Skin still touched skin. Her hand didn’t sink through the fabric of Misato’s borrowed shirt. Asuka hugged Misato tightly.

Misato let out a staccato sigh. “I don’t deserve that. But maybe I needed it. Better late than never, huh?”

Asuka released her. She propped her head up on her elbow so she could look down into Misato’s face, but Misato didn’t make eye contact. She continued to stare upwards.

“Was he the man of your dreams or something corny like that?”

Misato let out a long sigh that ended with a chuckle. 

“Being with him was like a dream when it was just the two of us in this room. No, we clung to each other like shipwrecked sailors. Nobody dreams about that. Then time ran out.”

Asuka’s mind wandered back to how her last night at sea truly ended. Kaji had taken her by the shoulders and firmly pushed her back and away so he could sit upright. He pulled the front of her dress closed, then took her trembling hands and clasped them over the buttons. He shifted his legs just enough so that she slid off him and onto the teak deck. She felt like she had been cast adrift.

“Asuka, there are boundaries between us that can’t be crossed. I need you to respect them more. For my part, I’ll need to make them clearer to you. I have business in Japan that will take up my time, too. I think that will be good.”

_It’s you I need. You’re the only one I need._

“You... You’re... I...”

“I’m here, that’s all. That’s all it is. Sometimes that’s enough, but you’re a special girl. You’re special to me. I can’t look at you the way you want to be seen. When somebody does, though, you’ll see it. I promise.”

_I can’t do this again, Kaji. I can’t do this twice. There isn’t enough. You have to take me._

Worlds failed her. Instead she shuddered and stared down at the deck.

Kaji got to his feet and brushed himself off. “For what it’s worth, I don’t mean anything bad by saying you’re still a child. There’s nothing wrong with that. And it’s not entirely fair to you, either. You’re grappling with things I’ll never understand. Give Ayanami and Ikari a chance, okay? They share your struggle. If not for yourself, do it for me?”

Back in the darkening bedroom, Misato wiped her cheek.

“Once I told him a terrible lie, you know. That I had found someone else. Wish I didn’t have to lie like that to put Kaji behind me.”

Asuka struggled to find some words for the dead.

_I didn’t do anything you asked me, I fucked it all up, but I listened to every word and remembered your promise. Is that enough? Goodbye, Kaji._

Asuka pushed herself off the bed. It was getting late. She turned back to Misato who seemed translucent in the twilight shadows.

“It’s not fair that we can put so much into a guy. Need him like that. But he can turn around and tell us ‘Get over me and do it for me’ like we owe him a favor for feeling something. When for him anyone will do.”

_Why’d I want to do it twice?_

Misato turned her head so she could look straight at Asuka. She was back and present. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Asuka crooked one wrist against her hip. “Come on, you said so yourself! ‘Anyone would do’ for what I offered Kaji.”

“No, I meant the other thing.”

Asuka resented the placid glow that washed over Misato’s face. She was at peace with some new revelation and it embarrassed Asuka. The moment ebbed away and she returned to staring at the ceiling.

“I’m going to stay here for awhile. I know I said not to dwell on the past because it’s ancient history, but my real calling was archaeology. When you grow up, kid, don’t leave so many ruins behind.”

_Grow up? Here? A gear doesn’t grow up into a clock._

“Okay.”

Asuka turned towards the door.

_Say it, you coward. I’ll hate you forever if you don’t say something._

“Hey Misato?”

“Hmm?”

_This could be it._

“I’m sorry it- we didn’t work out.”

“You should be. You always made a mess of the bathroom and used up all the hot water.”

Asuka smiled. She slid the apartment door open to reveal an elevator into NERV.

_This is so stupid._

Rei was there, too, and she pressed the Door Close button. Asuka didn’t remember getting inside.

_Ayanami._

“Ayanami!”

“I like your analogy. ‘A gear doesn’t grow up to become a clock.’ It is an apt analogy to our roles here and expresses your grasp of the principles of Instrumentality. I once read this: ‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the Sun.’ An expression of human pessimism that here, that now, proves to be axiomatic. There can be nothing new in this place for there to be complete and complementary understanding.”

“Well that sounds really boring to me. I’d hate to be fourteen forever.”

To Asuka’s astonishment, Rei began to sing. Her voice was weak and soft but she could carry a tune correctly if not with feeling.

“To everything, turn, turn, turn.

There is a season, turn, turn, turn.

And a time to every purpose under heaven.”

“That is a song,” Rei stated redundantly. “I appreciate music. Somebody told me singing enriches the soul. Do you agree?”

Asuka rolled her eyes.

“That sounds a bit fruity, even for Shinji, if you ask me.”

_Did Ayanami’s eyes just narrow?_

“It was not Ikari. You have not met him yet. Have you decided, Soryu?”

The _tick-tick-ticking_ grew louder.

_“We’d boat across but wouldn’t bridge it.”_

_I can’t do this twice._

_“That’s the time when mistakes become regrets because there’s no going back to fix them.”_

_You’re the only one I need._

“Who?” asked Rei.

The lights went out.

“Wake up,” said Rei.

“Hey! Excuse me?!”

“Wake up!” said Rei.

Asuka fumbled for Rei in the dark but she was all tangled up.

“Asuka!”

There was light. Asuka, who had been gaping into the darkness, winced at the shock of brightness.

“WAKE UP!” bellowed Misato as she flung the door wide. It slid aside with a thump. Asuka could see that was her door, the door to her room in the apartment she had lived with Misato for some time. Somehow she had gotten all knotted up in her sheets.

“Stop napping and get out here and when you do take out the trash! Kaji and Shinji are going to get here any minute!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the show, Asuka never really got to reckon with Kaji’s death or her feelings regarding him. She seems to accept that he’s dead but it’s all rolled into her breakdown over not being able to pilot. I think confronting those feelings would be the first place she “goes” in Instrumentality. Inevitably that brought me to confronting her advances towards the older man. I hope I pulled it off without being exploitative.


	3. Can't Go Home

Asuka took up two reeking trash bags and marched her charges outside to the dumpsters. They both stank of old beer and instant noodles so she wasn’t reluctant to get rid of them. It was more the still-undiscovered purpose behind Misato’s recent cleaning spree that had her puzzled.

 _Kaji’s OK, I guess, but since when is he worth all this effort?_ _It’s not like she’s not already getting laid. Pathetic, imagine rearranging your life around some guy._

Their apartment had never been cleaner. Misato had scrubbed, polished, picked up, and tidied the place unlike anything Asuka had seen since she moved in some years ago. Certainly beyond what she had ever done before a visit by Kaji or his brat.

_It’s not like he’s never been here. He knows Misato’s a big slob. Then again, they’re usually pretty wasted when they barge in and he sneaks out while it’s still dark out. Like I don’t know! Or can’t hear!_

She hurled the first garbage bag into the dumpster’s maw. It sailed in. Her aim was off with the second one. It got stuck on the edge and didn’t quite tumble over.

_Oh no, is she thinking about marriage? And I helped her lay a trap? I guess she’s getting old, though. Clock’s ticking. Soon she’ll be a barren old granny and she’ll never get to replace me with one of her own._

Asuka planted a high kick into the teetering bag which fell in with a satisfying crash.

When she arrived back at the apartment, there were two new sets of shoes in the hall.

“Asuka?” Misato called from the kitchen. “Come in! What took you?”

“Nothing, Misato! Coming, Misato!” Asuka growled back, kicking her shoes off so that they knocked the others around. She stomped her way into the kitchen to see three faces smiling back at her from the table.

“Hello, Asuka!” the two guests said in unison.

“Uh, hi. What’s going on?”

Misato gave her a parental frown. “Asuka! Please, come sit! Kaji and I have some news.”

“You’re breaking up? So sad! Hey, that’s my seat, Ikari!”

She slapped the back of Shinji’s head before he had a chance to move.

“Oh! Sorry, Asuka!” he mumbled, scrambling into the other chair. Kaji laughed while Misato tutted.

“Alright you two, enough for a while, ok? Me and Kaji have some news. Well it turns out that their apartment building was condemned by the building authority after the last aftershock.”

It was then that Asuka noticed the suitcases. _Oh no. Oh no no_ _no!_

“And, well, this was something we were thinking about doing, anyway, so...”

Kaji took Misato’s hand and squeezed.

“So I proposed to Misato!”

She could see the idiot next to her beaming with joy.

“And Misato invited us to come live here with you two,” he said to Asuka. “If that’s alright with you?”

“It’s not,” she muttered.

“She doesn’t get a vote!” retorted Misato before planting a big kiss on Kaji’s cheek.

“Well where’s that one going?” Asuka spat, pointing at Shinji with her thumb. “If you think I’ll share my room with some perverted little boy!”

“Oh no, he’ll go in the smaller room. That’s why we cleared it out.”

“That’s barely more than a closet. If he’s going in there, what about Kaji?” 

_Are you stupid?!_

Misato burst out laughing. Kaji struggled but failed to keep himself from smirking at his bride to be. Asuka felt her cheeks flush deep red. She turned to Shinji and saw he was similarly blushing.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older, Asuka-chan!”

Asuka helped Misato clean up the dishes after the other two had left to collect their other belongings. She was normally difficult when it came to chores, but she was too distracted by recent events to remember to have an attitude.

“Talk to me. I know you’re angry,” said Misato and she gave Asuka a light hip check.

Asuka let the dish she held clatter back into the sink.

“I’m not angry with you. You deserve to be happy. I don’t... I’d never...”

“I know that, Asuka-chan,” Misato cooed, drawing Asuka into an embrace.

“It’s just what if they hear me? When I cry at night, you know?”

Misato sat down in a chair. She drew Asuka sideways into her lap.

“What if we tried to get you some help again?”

Asuka shook her head. She clamped her eyes shut.

“Asuka, I know I’m not your...” Misato said, skipping over the word. “But since you came to me, since you entered my life, I’ve tried to do my best to do right by you. What did I know about raising a kid? What do I know now? I’m not all that much older than you.”

Asuka snorted.

“You brat!” Misato yelped and gave her a little shake, which also shook loose a tear from the corner of her eye. It fell with a _pat_ onto the girl’s cheek below.

“I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life. One of them was pushing Kaji away. Then I made a lot more mistakes before I realized I could undo some of them. When I looked him up, the worst part wasn’t worrying if he had found somebody else. Isn’t that strange? I could have taken heartbreak. Goodness knows I’ve had my heart broken over and over. My worst fear was if I could say the words I couldn’t all those years ago.”

“It meant admitting how all of our time together had meant more than it appeared on the surface. That letting him in was a choice that I chose poorly. I don’t know if any of this even makes sense. Just don’t give up on yourself, okay? I’ll never give up on you, I promise. I love you so much.”

_A doll. A noose. Her mother swaying back and forth._

Asuka shook her head again.

“I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

The glare of the morning sun was bright, but the glare Asuka gave to Shinji nearly outshone it in intensity.

“Come on, Ikari, keep up!” Asuka said, taking hold of Shinji’s hand. “I agreed to walk you to school, not carry you there!”

Shinji kept gawking at the sleek, modern skyline of Tokyo-3. Like many children, he had been orphaned by the Second Great Kanto Earthquake. Somehow he had come into the care of Kaji Ryoji who lived in Tokyo-2, a ramshackle development thrown together by the UN emergency authorities to house millions of homeless people as expediently as possible. 

Asuka, on the other hand, had grown up in the “earthquake-proof” Tokyo-3 developed by the NERV Corporation, an NGO that employed her own guardian and formerly her mother. Asuka considered herself orphaned by the same cataclysm, but it wasn’t the earthquake that killed her mother.

Pushing those feelings back into the deep and aching pit within her soul, she yanked Shinji along the sidewalk towards the school.

Something twinged inside her. She stopped hauling Shinji forward and let him draw even with her.

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me,” Asuka apologized, hardly believing the words coming out of her mouth.

“Oh no, I’m sorry for dawdling. It’s just I’ve hardly been here before. It’s all so new to me. Kaji and me come from Tokyo-2. I’m sorry, you probably know that already.”

_What a wimp. Well I guess this shouldn’t be too hard._

“I did but that’s OK. You were orphaned by the Second Quake, too?”

“Too? Oh, uh, yeah.”

Asuka flinched at her own slip-up. Of course Kaji must have told him her family history. Of course he’d know that his mother didn’t really die in the quake, just that she died because of it. She swallowed another bitter outburst and decided to let that pass.

_There has to be a better way to go about this. Woah, I’m still holding his hand..._

“So, I don’t know, what was that like for you?” she asked.

Shinji eyed Asuka carefully.

“It was hard at first. I’m sure you know. But after a while I learned that you have to focus on living, you know? When things calmed down, Kaji found me. I realized that there was still life all around. Maybe even that I owed it to my parents, to everyone who died, to keep living for their sake. I know that it can be harder for others...”

He gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it. They had reached the schoolyard.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Asuka, not sure about the feeling that just ran up her arm.

Mr. Fuyutsuki raised his eyebrow when he saw Asuka enter class 2-A with Shinji in tow.

“Has Miss Soryu met a young man?”

“You mean my future stepbrother?”

Mr. Fuyutsuki’s eyes bulged out, but he recovered from his initial shock quickly.

“Ah, so you must be Shinji Ikari, our new student? Class, I’d like you to meet Shinji!”

Students murmured half-hearted greetings.

“Why don’t you sit in that empty desk by the window, Mr. Ikari?”

“Yes, Mr. Fuyutsuki!”

“Perfect, let’s begin today’s lesson on life before the Second Kanto Earthquake.”

The classroom groaned in unison.

When the lunch bell rang, Asuka shot out of her chair and made for Shinji but she was too slow. The class dunce squad, Toji and Kensuke, had already cornered him.

“Hey Ikari, welcome to Tokyo-3! My name’s Kensuke Aida!”

“I’m Toji, nice to meet ya! When we heard about a transfer, we were afraid it was going to be another chick. They can be so stuck up, y’know?” added Toji.

Shinji smiled pleasantly and shook their hands.

“Yeah this class is already, uh, whatever the opposite of a sausage fest is. Hey! Speaking of die Wurst...” Kensuke began before Asuka shoved the two of them aside.

“Back off, _Dummköpfe_ , he’s mine for lunch.”

“Woah, slow down, we saw him first!” whined Toji.

“Actually _I_ did because I saw him before we even left for school! So if you’ll, _hey_ , no, wait a minute!”

The classroom boys broke into a low whistle.

“It’s not like that!” she snapped.

“Children, children! Let’s act rational, please,” Mr. Fuyutsuki called out.

“Asuka,” Shinji said, “I’d love for you to show me around sometime but I want to meet some new people first, okay? We’ll have plenty of time to catch up at home.”

The girls in the class oohed and ahhed this time, but were shut down by an icy blue stare from Asuka. _I still get all those notes from your so-called boyfriends! Don’t make me read them out loud!_

She turned to Shinji.

“Fine! See you at home, then, _bye_!”

Pivoting on her heel, Asuka stormed out of the class with her bento.

Asuka sat under a shady tree in the schoolyard. The cool spring air combined with the shade was uncomfortably cold, but she refused to budge. She also refused to eat, instead gripping her bento box shut with white knuckles.

_Why am I in such a rush? What is wrong with me? I have all the time in the world. Calm down, stupid!_

“Your funeral, bud! See ya back at class!” Toji said in the distance.

When she looked over in his direction, she saw Shinji approaching while his new found friends rapidly retreated.

“Hey, Asuka! Mind if I sit here?”

Asuka scowled at him, but remembered herself. She scooted over to allow him to sit, which only increased her discomfort. The new patch of bench where she sat was cold.

“Thanks! Hey, I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings earlier. I wanted to get off on the right foot with Toji and Kensuke back there, that’s all.”

“No, that’s fine,” Asuka said. Then, swallowing bile, she forced out, “Sorry for being a bitch about it.”

Shinji laughed lightly, giving Asuka butterflies.

“You weren’t, truly! You seemed like you wanted to talk to me, though, so here I am. What’s up?”

_Huh? Is this too easy now?_

“Well,” she started, placing her bento box aside and smoothing her skirt. “It was about what we were talking about earlier. You know. Orphans and stuff?”

Shinji nodded. He turned his full attention onto her.

“Well, my father died in the quake but not my mother. My mother, she died later than that.”

“I know,” Shinji whispered, then gasped when a strange grimace crossed Asuka’s face. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I mean, Kaji had told me so I’d, you know, know. But you tell it. I want to hear it from you.”

He reached over to Asuka to give her shoulder a brief squeeze. Her soul felt like it was somersaulting across the sun. Her eyes were wet but she found it was easy to smile at him.

“It started with a doll.”

On the walk home, Asuka indulged all of Shinji’s curiosity about Tokyo-3. The elaborate stress dampeners built under every highrise fascinated him. He showed a great interest in earthquake engineering which mortified Asuka. _How could he want to study the thing that killed his family?_ Each stop to examine this or that mechanism delayed them, but that worked to her advantage. It gave her time to think.

She had spilled her guts about her mother to Shinji in the schoolyard. Some of the details she gave didn’t feel quite real, but they felt true and he seemed to accept it all without question. After she was finished, all he did was lean forward and embrace her. She thought she’d _pop_ like a balloon.

_Look at that idiot._

Shinji was hanging over a ledge to peer into a particularly engrossing shock absorber.

She felt her cheeks tingling.

 _I think I love him_.

“Come on, silly, let’s go home,” she said, hooking her arm through his. Shinji smiled amiably and let her lead him away.

Back at the apartment, they found a hastily scribbled note on the table.

> Dear Shinji <3 and Asuka, <3
> 
> Your very responsible guardians are
> 
> getting very drunk at the reception
> 
> tonight and will stay at hotel.
> 
> Food in fridge.
> 
> NO BEER
> 
> BE NICE TO SHINJI
> 
> <3 LOVE <3
> 
> (lipstick print) + Kaji

Asuka threw the fridge door wide. “So you want a beer?” she asked Shinji, but he stammered out a polite refusal.

Suddenly self-conscious, she added “I only drink one occasionally, honest. Guess it makes me feel like a grown up, you know? She keeps so much of it on hand she never noticed.”

Shinji shrugged, but still didn’t accept one. Asuka cracked hers open and took a sip.

“Sorry about the food in advance. All we got is instant crap and frozen food.”

“I could cook something if you’d like,” Shinji offered. Asuka raised her eyebrow.

“So my new roommate cooks, huh? You any good?”

“Well Kaji thinks so!” Shinji said with pride. “I’ve had a lot of practice. He doesn’t exactly keep usual hours so I’m on my own when it comes to meals. He gives me an allowance and calls it my ‘chef’s salary’ but I’d do it for free. It’s not like I pay for the food.”

“Then the kitchen is yours, Chef Ikari,” Asuka said with a sarcastic bow. “I’m going to go change.” She had already loosened the red ribbon around her neck.

Shinji looked away shyly. _Mein Gott, he’s so precious._

In the safety of her room, Asuka found that her hands were shaking. _A whole night alone with Shinji? Misato, thank you for being so neglectful!_ She drained the beer.

She stripped off her school dress, blouse, and socks tossing them every which way. Ordinarily she and Misato dressed quite casually around each other. It was just the two girls after all. She supposed that would have to change. Recently Misato had said some very flattering things to her about how she was “growing up”, enough to make Asuka blush.

She looked down.

_I should at least wear a shirt or I’ll shock the children._

She threw on a loose yellow tee over some shorts.

Asuka flopped down on her bed. Her stomach growled with hunger, plus something else. She stared up at her ceiling. The fluorescent fixture above her bed threw light without warmth. Asuka stared into it until her vision became a milky blur, then she wrapped an arm over her eyes.

“Shinji,” she rehearsed in a whisper.

“Shinji, I know that we barely know each other, but it feels like we have always known each other.”

_That's so corny._

“Shinji, I know that we barely know each other, but it feels like we understand each other better than anybody.”

_Yeah, that’s better._

“I’ve never been able to talk about my life like that. You made it so easy. I...”

 _I love you_.

“I think I love you.”

_Damn it._

“Do you think you could love me, too?”

Asuka took a deep breath. The air tasted like a fresh meal. She got up, bleary-eyed, and stumbled out of her room. She was starving.

Shinji looked adorable in Misato’s immaculate green apron. It was probably the first time anybody had worn it. He nodded to her shyly, then turned away to serve.

“Sorry, I hope you like it. There, uh, wasn’t much to work with.”

Asuka dropped into her seat.

“I’m not surprised,” she said, feeling a little embarrassed at her and Misato’s living situation.

“Well maybe Misato will take me shopping with her sometime? Or I could do the shopping myself.”

“If you took over groceries, she’d probably marry you, instead.”

_Look at him blush!_

Shinji laid out the food and took off the apron. Asuka noticed that he himself had changed into something more casual. She smiled a secret smile to herself. _He’s already making himself at home. With me._

There was rice and some kind of meat and vegetable in a sauce. Asuka gulped, hoping the meat was still fresh. Shinji described all the ways he improvised to make the food, mostly looking at the serving dishes or down at his own in between quick glances at her. Asuka only looked at him. She felt her cheeks flushing but didn’t care. The food was delicious. She dreaded dessert.

Asuka finished first since Shinji had been talking. She made a point to consume every morsel with one big lick. She beamed at Shinji, who smiled and nodded back. Before his own chopsticks hit his own empty plate, Asuka was already up and out of her seat collecting their dirty dishes.

“We can save the rest for lunch tomorrow. I’ll pack it,” Shinji said, starting to get up.

“Yeah, yeah. Wait a minute, though?” Asuka said, dumping the dishes in the sink.

She sat in the chair next to Shinji’s. Her heart was pounding.

“Hey, Shinji?”

Shinji turned towards her. He quickly glanced down, then back up to her face. She realized he might have noticed her hands were shaking so she gripped her knees.

“Yes?”

Asuka took a big breath.

“Shinji, do you want to watch TV?”

Several hours later, Asuka was back in bed and alone with her thoughts. They had watched TV, washed the dishes, played with Pen Pen, and parted for the night without her ever mustering the courage to say what had to be said. She felt as though a train was barreling towards her but it never came. She’d have to jump in front of it first.

Asuka held her breath and listened. There wasn’t a sound aside from her heartbeat.

_No snoring. Good. Would have been a dealbreaker._

She hopped out of bed and made her way through the silver light towards her door. Not carefully enough since she tripped and fell over the clothes she had shed earlier. Stifling a curse, she held her breath again and listened. Still silence.

_I’m afraid to make a sound but I’m about to go wake him up. Are you stupid, Asuka?_

She got up and kicked the tangled clothes into a dark corner then marched out into the hall.

“Shinji? You awake? Shinji? I’m coming in.”

She slid his door open a crack. A thin rail of light from the hall illuminated Shinji in bed. His back was to her.

“Hey Shinji?”

Shinji stirred.

“Asuka? Is everything alright?”

_Well..._

“Shinji, can I come in? Please?”

“O-okay,” he said, rolling over.

Asuka crossed the threshold and sat at the foot of his bed. Shinji propped himself up on his elbow. He blinked.

She inhaled a big breath.

“Shinji, I know that, um, that we barely-”

“Wait! Stop, please,” Shinji said. He drew himself up into a sitting position. “I heard you.”

Asuka’s vision erupted with starbursts. Her heart tumbled into her gut.

_He had changed clothes before dinner. That means he went to his room. The room across from mine!_

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to listen! But you said my name! I thought you were talking to me, at least at first!”

_YOU IDIOT!_

“So you heard everything?”

“I think so.”

Asuka nearly cracked. Her whole face twisted in an effort to keep it all in.

“Okay. You heard. So how do you feel about what you heard?”

Shinji hugged himself into a ball. He might as well have dove into the sea and swam for China. His body language said everything she was about to hear.

“To tell you the truth, I worry for you. I don’t think we have as much in common as you think. I mean, we do. We have Misato and Kaji. And we’re both orphans. But, well, I’m sorry, but there’s some hurt in the past that I’ve left behind. It’s hard, I’m still working at it, but I’m doing my best to move beyond it.”

Asuka clenched and released her fists. She wanted to pound on stupid Shinji’s stupid face. Show him how it felt to really hurt.

“And I’m not saying that whatever you feel, what you’re struggling with, that it’s not hard for you. That you should just get over it. I’m not saying that at all. But it’s not good for me to talk about what happened to our parents when I’m trying to put that into the past.”

“I don’t know if Misato and Kaji getting married makes us brother and sister. We don’t have to call each other that. I’d so much like for us to become friends, though, Asuka. I can tell you’re in pain because I was in pain. I want to help you. There’s just stuff I can’t help you with myself.”

Asuka held her face in her hands and cried. He made it so easy.

“To answer your question, though...”

_You heard that, too?_

“We’re about to become family, Asuka. I’ll love you and Misato just as much as Kaji.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Asuka hissed through her hands.

“So was that enough?” Asuka said to nobody in particular. “Is my humiliation over?” She looked up at the ceiling expecting it to come tumbling down.

Shinji cocked his head to the side.

“Please don’t feel embarrassed, I won’t tell.”

“I wasn’t talking to _you_!”

Asuka ran back into her room and slammed the door.

It was a fine summer day for a wedding. The ceremony went off without a hitch. Asuka was shocked to see how sharp Kaji looked with a fresh shave and an unwrinkled suit. She was also shocked at how low Misato’s neckline was, but less so.

The newlyweds danced their first dance while the guests gawked. Asuka slipped away from Shinji, his new girlfriend, and the rest of the wedding party. She spotted a familiar blonde lady with an empty seat beside her.

“Anybody sitting here?” Asuka asked, flopping into the seat without waiting for an answer.

“Asuka? I work with Misato. Well, we’re friends. We’ve met, don’t you remember? It’s Ritsuko Akagi.”

“Cool.”

“Want to talk?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll talk.”

 _Can’t_ you _go sit somewhere else?_

“You’re clearly eyeing her new ward and look like you need a distraction. We call you her ‘ward’ at work, too. Whenever somebody refers to you as Misato’s daughter, she protests.”

“Thanks, that makes me feel super.”

“Ah, it’s not like that. She feels like she doesn’t deserve the honor of being your mother. At first we thought it was self-effacement, but at this point some people worry. I don’t. She told me not to, so I don’t.”

_Misato needs more friends._

Ritsuko seemed on edge even though they were far from the commotion and energy on the dance floor. Asuka’s intuition tingled.

“Do you smoke?”

“Hmm?” Ritsuko snorted. “How could you tell?”

“You want to go smoke?”

“Do _you_ smoke?”

“No, but I’ve been meaning to take it up.”

Asuka and Ritsuko rounded a corner of the function hall so they could have some privacy from the other smokers by the door. Ritsuko lit up a cigarette and handed it to Asuka, then lit another and took a deep drag.

“My girlfriend just broke up with me. She told me she needed me and I called her a liar. It made her cry. She looked so pathetic that I had to leave for a while and when I came back she broke up with me.”

Asuka burst out laughing. _What is going on?_

“Damn. That’s cold, lady.”

“She was lying! Nobody needs me. If I walked out of NERV tomorrow, nothing would change. I’m too good at writing documentation, you see. The secret is to make yourself indispensable, otherwise you’re disposable.”

Asuka glanced over to Ritsuko only to catch her looking back.

“You going to smoke that?”

Asuka looked at the strange burning thing in her hand.

“I don’t know how.”

Ritsuko sighed. “Ok, first put it between your lips. Just suck a little smoke into your mouth but don’t inhale! Oh no!”

Asuka was already coughing and retching. She smashed the cigarette under her heel.

“Alright, enough smoking lessons for one day.”

Ritsuko held out her phone to Asuka.

“This is my ex. Am I stupid or what?”

She thumbed through a few images of a mousy brown-haired woman. She wasn’t too young, but clearly a few years younger than Ritsuko was. Asuka could tell because she had a pleasant aura to her in all the pictures. The world hadn’t beaten her down yet. She was very cute. There was one picture of the two of them. Ritsuko wore an official-looking lab coat and her ex held a NERV mug.

Asuka rolled her eyes. “You work with her, too? You really are stupid.”

Ritsuko chuckled.

“You live with him, don’t you?” she said, indicating the hall with her cigarette. “Talk about awkward.”

Asuka gritted her teeth. _Who the hell is this lady? The NERV therapist?_

“What’s awkward is that I did need her,” Ritsuko said. She blew some smoke away from Asuka. “Desperately, in fact. But I still behaved so irrationally around her, like she threatened me.”

Asuka thought of the mousy girl with the earnest eyes.

“She threatened you?”

“Sure. It put me on the defensive. Fight or flight, an atavistic reaction. Have you ever heard of the Hedgehog’s Dilemma?”

“What’s that, a cartoon for babies?” Asuka was getting impatient with all her meandering. She crossed her arms. “How’d she threaten you?”

“By being essential, of course. I made an empirical observation: I needed her because when she wasn’t there it destroyed me. It’s a lot of power to cede to somebody. I held on to the self-destruct code, though. Look at us. Two strong women talking about their lost loves.”

Ritsuko sucked another drag from the cigarette and ashed it.

“What would you do if, say, somebody else was in control of your air supply?”

White rage blinded Asuka.

“I’d hold my breath,” she muttered.

“So you understand. Irrational behavior, in my opinion, though I’m not that kind of doctor. I made my role in her life very clear to her, but I obfuscated what part she played in mine. I thought that would make me indispensable. I think it just made me annoying to be around.”

“Did your cats take her side?”

Ritsuko tittered, but she did brush away a grey cat hair from her dark blue dress.

“Well I’m not like you,” said Asuka. “I told him. I made it very clear. Who doesn’t know what happened to the Walls of Jericho? Should I have said the Maginot Line? That’s just slutty!”

“Hmm, yes, slutty,” Ritsuko agreed.

“And you know what he did?”

“Blew his horn, no doubt.”

Asuka flushed crimson.

“No! He did nothing! Nothing.”

Asuka’s well-choreographed fury abruptly sputtered out.

Ritsuko puffed thoughtfully.

“At work, I program all kinds of earthquake models to accurately predict how a structure will respond to different scenarios. You’d be easy to model: a seamless concrete cube, about yea high, filled solid. I could throw a Third Kanto at you and predict zero casualties, but that’s because you can’t let anybody inside.”

She took another drag.

“Have you ever seen those videos of dogs who won’t walk through an open glass door? They stand there begging to be let inside until their owner steps over the threshold themselves? So cute.”

_Doctor animal fetishist might have a point. I should have kept the idiot on a leash._

Ritsuko flicked her spent cigarette into an uncertain oblivion.

“If you do depend on somebody, you should let him know. Test him all you want, but reach out just enough so he knows it’s not a trick.”

“Depend on somebody like you do on nicotine?”

“An imperfect analogy. Cigarettes don’t keep me in their purse. Make yourself the first one he seeks, not the last. Do you want him to feel relieved when you’re not around?”

Asuka felt a chilly tightness in her chest.

_“I’m scared of both Misato and Ayanami... Help me, help me, Asuka... Come on, wake up... Call me an idiot like usual!”_

“What if he did something bad?”

“Who? That nice boy inside?” Ritsuko said, gesturing to where a building had been.

“You know what I mean. You know who this is about.”

Ritsuko looked away. Earth and sky had lost distinction. “So don’t forgive him. I’ve never forgiven anybody for anything in my life and look how far I’ve come. Immortality with somebody who loved me all along. And I never would have known. Is she your plus one?”

Asuka looked over at a familiar face.

“You wore a school uniform to a wedding? You’re embarrassing, Ayanami.”

Rei and Asuka stood alone. The other guest was gone.

“You’re late, too.”

“I do not choose when to come.”

Asuka massaged her temple. The unreality of the last few months had her head throbbing. “You don’t choose much of anything on your own, do you?”

“I chose a new creation and made it my home.”

_Was that a smirk?! The ego on this demon!_

Asuka jabbed a finger at Rei. “Why is it that when you and the idiot play god, you get everything you want? But when I do it, all I get is punishment?”

“The human soul abhors a vacuum, thus complementation. Here you can escape from everything but your true desires.”

“If that’s true, why was I stuck here with that limp nobody with his name?”

“Because you are not honest with yourself. You would rather be defeated than be proven wrong. It is untenable.”

They were in the elevator again. Asuka kicked a big dent into a panel.

“Don’t even think you can lecture me on defeats! I’ve taken more defeats than you’ve had clones, Ayanami.”

_And I’m never wrong. I proved it again: the Shinji I needed doesn't exist. I proved that I don't need him to live. Empirically._

“You perceive defeat as a choice, but wrongness as fate. Defeat you treat as a choice because, as the best, you can choose to do less than your best. Being wrong you treat as fate for you have arrived at one truth and accept no revision. Is forgiveness being defeated or being wrong? Which would put it within your power?”

Asuka couldn’t stop her lips from trembling. She looked away, but it only meant she couldn’t see Rei, not that she couldn’t be seen.

_Tick-tick-ticking._

“Have you decided, Soryu?”

_I’d hold my breath._

“‘A time to every purpose’, huh? What about me? When’s my time?”

“Would you like me to sing more of the piece?”

_No._

> “A time to gain, a time to lose
> 
> A time to rend, a time to sew
> 
> A time for love, a time for hate...”

“A time for hate? There were so many times, Ayanami.”

_“Come on, wake up! Call me an idiot like usual!”_

“And even more people to hate, like you.”

_You made it so easy, stupid, to think you could love me._

“And him.”

_I’d hold my breath!_

“How could I possibly decide?” she demanded to Rei’s face, but was taken aback. Rei was smiling at her.

“I meant have you decided whether you can forgive, Soryu?”

“NO!”

_How would I know?_

Asuka felt the softness of a familiar bed in a familiar apartment. She heard a sound through the nighttime darkness, also familiar to her from certain nights before everything fell apart. A muffled gasp beyond the stillness of her room. Through the door and across the hall. She felt sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a new problem with this chapter: I wrote too much! It was tough hitting all the softer, gentler alternative universe notes I wanted plus the wedding sequence so I had to go over my 5000 word target. How did I do?
> 
> For me, Ritsuko’s situation in the show got more ironically amusing the more I thought about it. She kind of fell upwards between destroying the dummy plugs and surviving just long enough to achieve Instrumentality. I hope she found peace there.


End file.
